Does Income Inequality Harm Green Growth? The BRICS Experience

Abstract

Green growth plays a vital role in ensuring sustainable development. Managing economic growth without disrupting the environment is considered the need of the present time. Therefore, the empirics have turned their attention toward finding the determinants of green growth. Hence, we aim to investigate the impact of income inequality on green growth in BRICS economies from 1993 to 2020. Findings of the panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model confirm that the long-run estimate attached to GINI is negatively significant, implying that higher inequality in the BRICS economies lowers the rate of green growth. The country-wise results highlighted the negative impact of GINI on green growth in India and China only and insignificant in other countries. In the short run, the estimates are inconclusive and mixed, be it group-wise or individual estimates. Our findings imply that the target of lower inequality and environmental sustainability can be achieved simultaneously.